Eliza: Taking a Look

How Do We Play as Being?

When this question came up during retreat I thought "What a funny question." Funny, because it seems such an obvious one to ask and yet I've not really done so.

So I took at a look at myself...
especially at the way that I set aside the time to come to the computer, and what I seem
to value most in a session. What I saw is that my my personal approach to PlayasBeing,
is very much one of thinking of it as Practice, in the same sense of the word as going to daily
Mass/Church might be for a person in another time.

I feel that playing as Being allows a connection and conversation with others that bypasses
an invisible judgemental/labeling tendency ... one that normally I might not even see myself engaged
in...
that the nine/ninety second pauses continually bring into question conditioning toward losing sight
of 'what I am' (a question far too big to answer)... trading it for 'what I think I have', or for 'what I think
I can/cannot do'... in other words, for whatever I think I and others can measure and package and '
store up' in some way.

There is, for me, a subtle fear of life and change there, which the pauses and indeed the sessions
themselves help to uncover and release, when I let them. 

And the thing is, as much as we don't easily let ourselves freely be & explore & converse beyond
the 'usual' havings and doings ("Hi I'm Eliza, the avatar of a mother of three"), we tend to lose sight
of 'others' in exactly the same way ("What do you *think?", even "How do you feel?" )...

So, often in sessions, I pause to see some of the ways that I've been asleep at the wheel ...  there
but not there... to 'come back' to the company I set aside time to enjoy. I can find that I've
withdrawn unknowingly into 'my' ideas or plans for the day... into small loops of thought, at the expense
of staying in the openess of  'no agenda', of being part of something fresh.

Then I wake up... return. What could be more important than the *person* sitting there with me?
Its a way of going back to the start, in a sense, which I learned this week, is also be a way of continually
'starting at the end.' :) "Practice" isn't really something that can be packaged, but a living
process with others.

We are all so different, but in some of my favorite sessions we do this with explorations, with noticing our
senses or focusing our attention in some way that helps us get in contact with life in more a direct way.
I'm surprised to hear others' observations...
angles I never imagined much less thought to explore... amazed to find so much available right where we
are, and to see my slouching! :))

:) So to sum up (though I could go on and on), during this retreat discussion about what it means to 'play as being', it became quite apparent that 'starting at the end' is a vital component of not just a large-scale PaB vision, but of each and every session, each and every meeting ... every pause.   

We arrive to a session 'ready' to recognize one another, to give benefit of the doubt, first... to deeply listen
and just play/just see what may come. Even our being present in silence, is an open gesture of appreciation,
and of saying that we're here for one another... choosing that moment to moment.

Then... from that place we can certainly enjoy and appreciate all the doings and havings and thinkings.
Not to mention ridiculousnesses and onigokko. :)

being-to-being, expressing Being.

One thing I feel comforted and humored to notice, is that I think we already ARE in the habit of regarding/honoring the sessions and time with one other. Why else would we feel compelled to type "Be right back" when we run to the kitchen for tea? haha

Still, it does seem helpful to dwell on and revisit such a question from time to time.